Violence in all forms is rampant in our society, however acknowledging the problem is not enough , it is simply a first step in trying to get solutions.

When we are dealing with violence against women, victicms are not just female.Domestic violence affects everyone, including other members in the family, such as parents, brothers, sisters, but unfortunately the ones who suffer more are their own children who have to be the witness of such a terrible scene at home.

It is for this reason that we must have the power as a society, one more time and another year, to say NO MORE !! STOP IT !!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Royal British Legion provides support to those who have served or are currently serving in the British Armed Forces.

It is best known for its Poppy Appeal which takes place in the weeks leading up to the 11th of November. This involves the public making a donation to the British Legion and receiving an artificial poppy in return.

Remembrance Services take place at 11.00 on the Sunday nearest the 11th of November and there is a minute silence in supermarkets, in the street etc. Also, before football matches kick-off a minute silence is normally conducted.

During the First World War, poppies grew in the battlefields of Belgium and France and so the poppy now reminds people of the great loss of life caused by the war.

A Canadian soldier called John McCrae wrote a famous poem about the Poppy during the First World War.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below

This Year, FIFA decided to ban the England team from wearing the Poppy during their game against Spain. However, following pressure from the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, FIFA have decided that they can wear the poppy but it must be on a black armband instead of on their chest.

Monday, November 7, 2011

The Beatles, or the Fab Four, were one of the most famous bands in the history of pop music.
The line-up:

John Lennon (vocalist): born 9 October 1940, died 8 December 1980Paul McCartney (vocalist and guitarist): born 18 June 1942George Harrison (vocalist and guitarist): born 25 February 1943, died 29 November 2001Ringo Starr (drummer): born 7 July 1940

TASK : Copy the lyrics of your favourite song by this wonderful pop group and explain why you like it

Saturday, October 22, 2011

This week we are going to watch some flashcards about costumes, Jack O´Lantern, skeletons and all these scaring things so we can practise our pronunciation and learn some songs with Lauren Guimmellour Scottish Language Assistant.

Some ideas for our optional assignments are:

Students can surf the net for some information about Halloween to write a nice project and add some photos to decorate their class.

They can write a short paragraph about something they have done for Halloween in the past, for example, what they have dressed up as or a party they have attended to.

They can invent a very short story related to Halloween, for example a spooky story.

They can draw a picture of their favourite Halloween "monsters" and then write a short paragraph describing them.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Our 2º ESO Bilingual students enjoying their English class using edmodo

It´s a free, secure, social learning platform for teachers, students, schools and districts.With worldwide use at over 1.5M as of Feb 2011, this popular service enables teachers to connect better with students, and safely leverage web resources for creative teaching.

Some of the social network capabilities which Edmodo provides, include:

Enables teachers to post messages for their students

Enables teachers to assign and grade assignments

Enables teachers and students to share content and materials

Enables teachers to network with other teachers, to share ideas and resources

Keeps communications safe and secure with built-in privacy controls for each virtual classroom.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Let me introduce you to Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton She is a researcher at Calgary University, Canada, PhD in Educational Leadership.

She has written an ebook: Want to Change the World? Learn Another Language: Leadership Inspired by Language Learning

In her book she mentions the immense benefits of learning another language but bringing in more perspectives. She points out that some people became leaders or could change the world, because they learned another language.

I quote some of her lines: “Learning a language is about growing as an individual, broadening our horizons and deepening our understanding of the world around us”. “When we learn other languages, we challenge ourselves to dig deep into ourselves in order, ultimately, to reach out, to connect”

I recommend reading her ebook, which is available for free by visiting:

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Well, we are closing another school year,it seems like only yesterday I was meeting you for the very first time! I hope it’s been a pleasant learning experience.

Congratulations to all of you who graduated and passed all your subjects!

I hope you can relax now and remember everybody that our goal in this life is to be happy and learning something new everyday must be part of it.

As a teacher I know there is not a recipe for a good life, you have to make it happen yourself with your ownwork and effort.So I would like you to get all the best in you next future, no matter what dream we believe in, at the end the most important is to find our own way looking after ourselves and the ones we love.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

On Tuesday, May 3, 2011 middle schools across USA participated in the "Let's Move! Flash Workout." This historic event was produced in support of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative and underscored the importance of physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle for children.

Friday, May 13, 2011

It was at Barceló Hotel and in there several teachers presented their blogs in morning and evening sessions.

To me, and I am sure to many other teachers, assisting to this event was an incredible experience whose main purpose is the use of blogs as another teaching resource in its different aspects, both as an excellent way to amplify our learning by real context, and in its training cooperative function. That is why educative blogs are becoming a means for teachers, students and education administrators to interact more effectively than ever before and new technologies should become a new subject in our classrooms.

STUDENTS ACTIVITY:

Are you good at using computers?

And what about doing it in English?

With this song you will have no problem. You will only have to memorise a lot of vocabulary about technology. Then copy and translate into Spanish all the expressions in your notebooks.Finally I recomend you to learn some of the internet symbols you need too.After some tries with this song you will have the opportunity to show your classmates how good your memory is.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

From Monday 25th to Friday 29th we are celebrating our Sixth Literary Week. Hopefully we will read a lot of books during all our life, and I am sure we will have a lot of moments of pleasure through them.

Reading is the basic foundation on which academic skills of an individual are built. You can read almost anything including books, newspapers, magazines, comics etc . So the list is very long, but that hardly matters, as long as you like doing it. Whether you like fiction or non-fiction is not important, but whether you like reading or not is!

Nowadays teenagers are often too busy with their computer games , social nets and chats , whereas some parents are glued on to their television screens . Reading does have its loyal fan following, but the fan base is rapidly decreasing. We at IES Portada Altahave been making an attempt at increasing this fan base through our Literary Week celebrated every year.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Take this fool´s QUIZZ about sixteen claims that have been made in the media. Approximately half the claims were April Fool's Day jokes. The other half were real news stories. Can you tell the difference between the two?

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

If you want to go on writing and listenig to your own English dialogues you can use Xtranormal's text-to-movie platform—a web-based application used to create short 3D animated movies from simple text-based movie-scripts. The characters in the movie speak the dialogue in the script, and react to performance triggers—icons that are dropped directly into the script, just like smileys in IM/chat. Movies can be shared through e-mail, blogs and online video sharing and social networking sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.

Here I show you another way of learning English by doing things on the web with this talk about learning in Second Life a mixed reality session with Chris Smith in R.L. interacting with Shamblesguru in S.L.